Side By Side As Brothers
by Heidi Erickson
Summary: My perspective on what Frodo and Sam might've been thinking and feeling as they faced their potential deaths on Mt. Doom. Non-slash! Please read and review.


_**Side By Side As Brothers**___

_**A/N: The Mt. Doom scene in **_**The Return of the King**_** touched me in the deepest way possible. In my opinion, it's probably one of the most dramatic film moments in cinema history! :D Anyway, this drabble is my perspective on that scene. I hope you enjoy it. :) Thank you!**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Lord of the Rings**_** or anything related to **_**The Lord of the Rings**_**. All rights belong to J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson, and perhaps even New Line Cinema.**_

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Was it possible to feel hot and cold at the same time? Was it possible to hear the roar of the volcano and the bubbling of hot lava and yet hear nothing at the same time? Was it possible to see only yellow and brown all around you—and yet to be blind to it all?

Even if it wasn't possible, Frodo Baggins was actually experiencing all of that at this moment. He held on to the jagged cracks of the cliff with all of his might and nine fingers. One finger, his left finger, was slashed in half and bleeding horribly. That miserable creature Gollum had bitten it off savagely in his desperation to get his filthy hands on the One Ring.

Frodo closed his eyes as he heard Gollum's body fall into the lava below with a sickening thick _splash_. He then waited for the inevitable moment in which the Ring would be one with the molten fire. He didn't want to look down to see if it was gone. Besides, it was too far down to see, anyway.

After what seemed like for years and years, Frodo saw Sam crawl hastily over the edge. He looked down, and with an anguished expression, he reached down. "Give me your hand!" He urged.

With a worn and weary gaze, Frodo did not reach up at first. He felt the heaviness of the Ring still hanging on to him; he knew it had not melted yet.

"Take my hand!" Sam cried urgently, reaching out further. Frodo carefully swung up his four-fingered hand to Sam's, but it was still too far away and the blood covering his hand made him slip. Frodo nearly panicked as he hung on the cliff with one hand. He looked down at the boiling yellow and orange lava briefly before gazing up at Sam again.

He stared up into Sam's watery green eyes, and only briefly considering letting go. After all, didn't Frodo deserve this, this outcome of death? Just at the last minute upon arriving into Mt. Doom, Frodo had given into the temptation of the One Ring. And that led to his almost-fall, when Gollum had attacked him and Frodo had to fight him for it. And Sam had just laid there, an unconscious victim of Gollum's violence. Sam, dear Sam—_Frodo's _Sam, who had gone with Frodo until the very end, he had gone with Frodo to _be with_ Frodo. Sam had gone to be Frodo's _brother_—_to the death_.

"No!" Sam exclaimed when Frodo almost slipped. But Frodo still hung on. He looked up at Sam with wise, humbled eyes, with eyes filled with love for his friend.

And with that gaze from Frodo, Sam knew what he was thinking. With a choked voice, he whispered with anguish, "Don't you let go."

Frodo considered. He contemplated. And then he remembered hope. There was still hope. Frodo was still alive. And Sam was his thread of hope—the thread he could hold onto and be revived by.

"Don't let go," Sam pleaded, tears running down his face. And Frodo knew he could not let go when there was still lasting hope.

"_Reach!_" Sam ordered.

And Frodo reached. With the last bit of his strength, he swung up high and grabbed Sam's hand.

And just then, Frodo felt an invisible weight being lifted off him immediately.

Bur right now, while Sam was pulling him up, Frodo did not have time to acknowledge this new feeling.

Suddenly, everything rumbled and shook around them. The lava started bubbling and roaring louder, and it rose up with dangerous speed. Sam and Frodo half-ran and half-dragged each other, racing to get outside. The bridge and cliff broke down under the weight and heat of the lava.

Just when the molten fire gushed out of the mouth of the volcano, Frodo and Sam leaped upon a high boulder, their only safe haven.

Panting and nearly crying, Frodo trudged up the boulder. It took a moment for him to finally decipher his new feeling, to finally reconnect with awakened reality.

"It's gone," he murmured in an awestruck, choked up, and trembling voice of joy. "It's _done_," he announced in a weak voice.

Sam stared at him with a toiled, teary gaze. "Yes, Mister Frodo," he agreed, "It's over now."

And Frodo smiled, a smile he hadn't formed with his mouth for a long, long time. It was a smile that represented his freedom from the Ring.

But then hot liquid fire crashed against the boulder, and it shook. Sam grabbed Frodo and they scrambled up the boulder. They knew their reckoning with death was any minute now.

Frodo bumped the back of his head against the hard rock. He closed his eyes, letting every muscle in his body relax. Breathing heavily, he took the time to comment. "I can see the Shore," he said wistfully, picturing his home inside his mind. "…The Brandywine River," he continued, "…Bag End…Gandalf's fireworks…the lights in the Party Tree…"

"Rosie Cotton dancing," Sam's voice broke as he added his piece of thought, "…She had ribbons in her hair."

Frodo slowly opened his eyes and glanced at Sam. He was crying visibly. "If ever I was to marry someone," he went on with a strong but quavering voice, "…It would've been her. It would've been _her_," he repeated, crumbling into sobs and shaking with grief.

Feeling the deepest compassion and sympathy for Sam, Frodo sat up and went to sit next to Sam. He wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulder and touched his forehead to the side of Sam's.

"I'm glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee," Frodo admitted with words to reassure Sam and recover him. Frodo turned his head slightly and looked across the field of magma. A single tear rolled down his cheek.

"…Here at the end of all things." He finished with a whisper.

He put his other arm around Sam and embraced him like a brother. Sam reached up and held onto his arm, and they just sat there, waiting for death to claim their lives.

They closed their eyes. All they really cared about was the fact that at least they got to die together. At least they would die, side by side, as brothers of the heart.

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_**A/N: Well…I thought it'd be appropriate to end it right there…*tears up.* Of course, if you know what happens next in the movie and book, then you don't really have a reason to cry and try to kill me for ending it in this way. ;) I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you!**_


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